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Junior enlisted to receive honors at Arlington

Spc. Joseph Hernandez, who died Jan. 9 in Afghanistan, will become the first junior enlisted soldier to receive full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Until Jan. 1, this was only accorded to officers, Medal of Honor recipients and enlisted members who reach the highest possible enlisted rank of E-9.

Hernandez, 24, of Hammond, Ind., was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Jaldak.

Two other soldiers, Maj. Brian Mescall, 33, of Hopkinton, Mass., and Sgt. Jason Parsons, 24, of Lenoir, N.C., were also killed.

The soldiers were with 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, Hohenfels, Germany.

Hernandez’s service is scheduled for Jan. 23, and his military honors will include band, casket team, bugler, escort platoon and a firing party.

“His family opted to proceed without the caisson, in order to schedule the earliest possible date,” Kaitlin Horst, spokesperson for Arlington National Cemetery, said in an e-mail message.

The decision to make full honors available to all enlisted soldiers was made in December by Army Secretary Pete Geren, who said the honors will also apply to members of other services if requested and authorized.

Army assets that currently support military funeral honors at Arlington, he said, will be made available for those funerals.

The Army secretary is the executive agent for all matters concerning Arlington, considered the nation’s most hallowed military cemetery.

Under the new funeral honors policy, eligible enlisted soldiers will be those who were killed as a result of:

• Any action against an enemy of the United States.

• Any action with an opposing armed force of a foreign country in which the U.S. military is or has been engaged.

• Action while serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in armed combat against an opposing armed force in which the U.S. is not a belligerent party.

• An act of any such enemy of opposing armed forces.

• An act of any hostile foreign force.

• An international terrorist attack against the U.S. or a foreign nation friendly to the U.S., recognized as such an attack by the Army secretary.

• Military operations while serving outside the territory of the U.S. as part of a peacekeeping force.

• Action by friendly fire — that is, non-enemy weapons fire while directly engaged in armed conflict, unless the soldier’s death was the result of the soldier’s willful misconduct.

Enlisted soldiers killed in a combat zone or hostile-fire area as the result of non-hostile actions not noted above will continue to receive standard military funeral honors at Arlington, the policy states.

“Arlington National Cemetery is an expression of our nation’s reverence for those who served her in uniform, many making the ultimate sacrifice,” Geren said in a statement released following his memo. “Arlington and those honored there are part of our national heritage. This new policy provides a unified basis for all Army soldiers killed in action.”

• Staff writer William H. McMichael contributed to this story.